Rachel Wall: New England’s Only 'Lady' Pirate

Rachel Wall may have been the first American-born woman to become a pirate – but she most certainly was the last woman to be hanged in Boston, though the specific crime that landed her that fate wasn’t actually piracy at all.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in
partnership with I Heart Radio. Welcome to Criminalia, where it's
pirate season. We'll be exploring the lives and motivations of
some of the most notorious freebooters throughout history. I'm Maria

(00:22):
Tremarqui and I'm Holly Fry. And Rachel Wall, who we're
talking about in this episode, was probably born as Rachel
Schmidt too devoutedly Presbyterian parents sometime in seventeen sixteen. She
is unique because she is credited with being New England's
only quote lady pirate, or, as she's been mentioned in

(00:44):
some of the research that came up, the dread pirate
Rachel sort of marvelous. She was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania,
and she may also have been the first American born
woman to become a pirate. But she most certainly was
the last woman to be hanged in Boston, although the
specific crime that landed her fate was not actually piracy,

(01:07):
and that becomes an interesting twist in her story. Yes,
certainly so. We're the lucky when it comes to Rachel
Wall's life history, or at least parts of her history,
and that's because before the end of her life, she
wrote a piece called Life, Last Words and Dying Confession
of Rachel Wall Right here, we want to emphasize two things. First,

(01:29):
half of that headline is in all caps. And second,
keep in mind that this confession was penned shortly before
her execution. Will reference it throughout, But keep in mind
it's it's not a journal, it's a document created at
the end of her life when she knew her fate
was sealed. Okay, before we get to the end of
her life, though, let's talk about her younger years. Rachel

(01:52):
was born into what she described in that document as
a good family. She called her parents quote good and reputable.
Her father was a farmer, but we do know that
he was definitely a man quote of a very serious
and devout turn of mind, and always made it his
constant practice to perform family prayers in his house every

(02:12):
morning and evening, and was very careful to call his
children and family together every Sabbath day evening to hear
the holy scriptures and other pious books read to them.
And according to this written confession, which it's uh laid
out as though she actually verbally gave it as a
confession and someone else took it down just for clarity.
But according to this confession, her parents gave her the

(02:35):
moral foundation to lead a happy, crime free life. She said, quote,
they gave me a good education and instructed me in
the fundamental principles of the Christian religion, and taught me
the fear of God. And if I had followed the
good advice, I should never have come to this untimely fate.
Rachel had three brothers and two sisters who were living

(02:56):
at the time she left home. At least again, according
to this document, they do not appear to have similarly
been drawn into a life of crime, but we really
don't hear about them. After Rachel left Carlisle, her family
life wasn't enough to make Rachel happy, so she actually
ended up leaving home at the age of sixteen and
made her way to where she always said she was

(03:17):
most comfortable and felt most at home, and that was
the waterfront. We looked at maps. Depending on the waterfront
you're talking about around Carlyle, that could be quite a
walking journey, you know, as many as days. Several sources
say she went to the waterfront. Whichever one that means,
we know she went there, and that's where she met
a man named George Wall, who made his living as

(03:38):
a fisherman and who also would change the course of
her life. The pair soon married, and they began traveling
around the United States together, first of Philadelphia briefly, and
then a few months in New York City, and eventually
to Boston, where they settled. And in her confession, Rachel
does make a point of clearing her parents name of
any blame by stating that she did all of this

(04:00):
without their consent. So it was not long after the
Walls moved to Boston, however, that George left Rachel for
time at sea. When the newlywed Rachel was questioned about
her husband's whereabouts, she admitted she had no idea where
he was. She would say, quote, he went off again
and left me, and then would continue and where he
is now I know not. It is actually now thought

(04:22):
by historians that George was probably a privateer during the
American Revolution, and that's how and when he observed the
life of a pirate and decided that that was the
life for him. To support herself while he was away,
Rachel turned to one of two possible professions, depending which
piece of her folklore you hear, so it's possible, yet unlikely,

(04:45):
that she took a job as a barmaid. It is
way more likely, especially because she's actually quoted talking about
it in her confession, that she really took a job
as domestic help in Boston's wealthy Beacon Hill neighborhood, and
it was there that she was she said, quote very contented.
George did eventually returned to his wife, and when he did,

(05:08):
he began a campaign to get her to join the
business of piracy with him. During her final confession, Rachel
was quoted about that, saying, as soon as he came back,
he enticed me to leave my service and take to
bad company from which I might date my ruin. So
at this point we're going to take a break for
a word from our sponsor, and when we return, we'll

(05:30):
talk about how Rachel and George began their life of piracy.
So romantic, welcome back to Criminalia, all right, Coming up,
we're going to talk about everything from Blackbeard to Rachel's trial.

(05:50):
As it turns out, some of the most notorious pirates,
such as black Beard, Samuel Bellamy, and Captain Kidd were
all known to travel in the waters off of Boston's sure,
So it's believed that they came north to New England
to trade their goods with merchants in Connecticut, New York,
and you guessed it, Boston too. Not the only pirates
in the area, obviously, and definitely not as famous. Rachel

(06:14):
and George also sailed off the coast of New England,
and legend says they stole a ship named the Essex
to begin this journey together. It said they robbed as
many as twelve ships and plundered and killed twenty four sailors.
Their lowres suggests they made as much as six thousand
dollars doing this, perhaps more, perhaps less. We haven't done

(06:35):
this in a little bit, so hold on and remember,
translating dollars to dollars over nearly two hundred fifty years
is super sketchy. Don't quote these as real numbers, but
here we go. The purchasing power of that six thousand
dollars would be maybe about roughly equivalent to a hundred
and thirty thousand dollars in one and the amount they

(06:58):
took in may have actually been as highest twelve thousand,
which bear with us again, is somewhere possibly around the
equivalent in purchasing power to more than two hundred seventy
thousand dollars today, although there isn't any proof beyond her
pre execution confession. According to the legends surrounding the Walls,
they attacked vessels around the aisles of the shoals just

(07:21):
off the coast of New Hampshire. In her confession, Rachel
went into pretty good detail about how she and George
worked as a team. They primarily worked after storms had hit,
and they made use of the unique situation of having
a woman on board to lorian victims. Through deception. Rachel
would stand on the deck or the mast of the
ship and pretend to be the lady in distress. She

(07:44):
would scream for help until nearby sailors came to her rescue,
and that's when George and his crew would plunder their
ships and murder their crew. In two though, tragedy struck
when George and most of his crew drowned at sea
during a storm. Worm Rachel, as well as a number
of the crew, were rescued from the shipwreck, and it

(08:04):
is at that point that she gave up piracy and
returned to Boston. Back in Boston, Rachel turned her work
from piracy back to domestic help. She did, though, keep
her hand in the game a bit by committing petty crimes.
It said she could never shake her love of the
sea or her love of looting. In fact, she's known

(08:25):
to have sneaked aboard ships docked in Boston Harbor. She
described one of these outings on Long Wharf in Boston, saying, quote,
sometime in the spring of seventy seven, not being able
to ascertain the exact time, I happened to go on
board a ship lying at the Long Morph in Boston.
The captain's name I cannot recollect, but think he was

(08:46):
a Frenchman. On my entering the cabin, the door of
which not being fastened, and finding the captain and mate
asleep in their beds, I hunted about for plunder and
discovered under the captain's head a black silk hank or
chief containing upwards of thirty pounds in gold crowns and
small change, on which I immediately seized the booty and

(09:08):
decamped therewith as quick as possible. I like that she
was stealthy enough to steal money from under a man's head.
Under his head, so I actually found two versions of
this little story, and they had all the same basic
information in them, and I think the last like maybe
one or two sentences were even exactly the same. It

(09:28):
was missing a few things, like in the spring of
sevent seven. Um, it was missing lying at the long wharf,
and it was missing that he was a Frenchman. So
it was pretty much the same. But I thought that
this one had some Besides, I liked that she said
she seized the booty. This was not the truncated version
of her quote, which I thought was pretty good. It
was nice to be able to see two versions. Um. So,

(09:49):
moving on back to her confession, racial states in that
confession quote in short, the many small crimes I have
committed are too numerous to mention in is sheet. But
in addition to the theft we just mentioned, she also
recounts two other specific crimes, which she said she included
quote as a solemn warning to the living of my sex,

(10:11):
at least especially to those whom they were immediately concerned. Yeah.
One of those is this account of stealing from yet
another ship's captain, which goes quote At another time. I
think it was about the year seventy eight, I broke
into a sloop on board of which I was acquainted.
Lying at Dones Wharf in this town, and finding the

(10:32):
captain and every hand on board asleep in the cabin
and steerage, I looked round to see what I could
help myself to when I aspied a silver watch hanging
over the captain's head, which I pocketed. I also took
a pair of silver buckles out of the captain's shoes.
I likewise made free with a parcel of small change
for pocket money to make myself marry among my evil companions,

(10:56):
and made my escape without being discovered. And here's why
Rachel's confession should be taken with a grain of salt.
So in it, she confessed she attempted to break her
husband out of jail by using what is now pretty
much one of the oldest tricks in the book. By
this time, Rachel's confession seems to have been more a

(11:16):
work of fiction or at least an exaggeration, But we're
going to talk about it anyway because it's really an
interesting part of her legend. So here's the problem. Her
husband George in this story was in jail, but we
know he died in a shipwreck in Sight two. So
what's real, and what's not real is a little bit

(11:37):
blended here. Right. It's also possible just that she has
a bad grasp of calendar dates. I was just going
to say that she earlier mentioned in her confession she
couldn't remember the year of something that happened, and you know,
maybe that's true. Right, So it may be true, it
may not be true. We're going to tell it. It's
part of legend. It's a pretty good one. So this,

(12:01):
this possibly fictional part of her confession states that Rachel
had tools to escape baked into a loaf of bread
and had that bread sent to George. She wrote, quote,
sometime about the year seventeen eighty five, my husband being
confined in the jail in this place for these I
had a mind to try an expedient to extricate him

(12:23):
from his imprisonment, which was to have a brick loaf
baked in which I contrived to enclose a number of
tools such as a saw, file, et cetera, in order
to assist him to make his escape, which was handed
to him by the jailer in person, who little suspected
such a trick was playing with him. However, it liked
to have had the desired effect the crafty contriver intended

(12:46):
for by means of this stratagem. The poor culprit Wall
had busily employed himself with the implements that his kind
helpmate had in this curious manner conveyed to him, and
had nearly affected his design before it was discovered. So
before he could dig his way out, they were onto him.
The part that I really like about what she put

(13:08):
in the brick loaf of baked bread was the saw
just they saw that I imagine is very small because
it goes in a loaf of bread um, And I
just think to myself, Wow, I'd take a long time.
Rachel's life changed again on the evening of March eighteen
seventy nine. According to her confession, she was walking home

(13:28):
from work and we quote without design to injure any person.
She was she continued, quote surprised when the crime was
laid to her charge. And here's what happened. Seventeen year
old Margaret Bender, who had also been walking on that road,
accused Rachel of stealing a bonnet, shoes and buckles, and
possibly a few shillings to violently off her body. There's

(13:52):
also an odd and highly unlikely version of this story
that suggests that she and that she is Rachel, tried
to ripped out Margaret's tongue. That sounds a little like
the exaggeration of gossip going around, but we don't know
for sure. Yeah, the report of the crime that was
published in the papers about two weeks later definitely leaned

(14:15):
toward Margaret's version of the story. That was reported as follows.
As a woman was walking alone, she was met by
another woman who seized hold of her and stopped her
mouth with her handkerchief and tore from her head her
bonnet and cushion, after which she flung her down, took
her shoes and buckles, and then fled. She was soon

(14:35):
after overtaken and committed to jail. Rachel did run from
the police, but she was quickly arrested and jailed for
highway robbery, which is robbery that's committed you could guess
on or near a public road. It was during this
time that Rachel came clean about her life of piracy
and all it entailed. But the one thing she always
maintained was her innocence in regard to that bonnet. Of

(14:58):
all the acts of piracy, Rachel had been involved with
her arrest record was actually just for things like petty theft.
This arrest was for highway robbery, which meant that she
could be executed if found guilty. She pleaded innocent, and
we quote as to the crime of robbery, I am
entirely innocent. To the truth of this declaration, I appealed

(15:19):
to that God before whom I must shortly appear. She
was tried by a jury and only men could serve
on juries at this time before the Supreme Judicial Court
in Massachusetts in August of seventy nine, and Rachel was
found guilty. Not to take anything away from Rachel's life,
we would be remiss if we didn't mention how famous

(15:39):
those who participated in her trial would become. For example,
Rachel's life was happening at exactly the same time that
George Washington, a founding father of the United States, was
leading troops to victory in the American Revolution. But his
is not the only name that you will recognize from
this time period and specifically from Rachel's trial. Right, So,

(16:00):
the presiding judge was William Cushing, who went on to
become one of the first U. S Supreme Court justices.
The prosecutor was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Her court appointed lawyer, Christopher Gore, not only helped ratify
the Constitution, he also became the first U. S Attorney
from Massachusetts. During trial, he requested, and we quote, that

(16:22):
sentence of death might be given against the said Rachel Wall,
the prisoner at the bar, and her death warrant. And
this one, I thought was really kind of the most interesting,
carried what may be considered the most famous signature in
US history, and that's John Hancock, who was the first
governor of Massachusetts at the time. I wonder if it

(16:42):
was massive and overtook the document. I wondered the same thing. Honestly,
I need a page for my last name. We are
going to take a break here and have a word
from our sponsor, and when we come back, we're going
to talk about Rachel's conviction of highway robbery. Again, not
Pyras sing. Welcome back to Criminal Lea. Let's talk about

(17:11):
how Rachel requested to be hanged like a pirate. So
here's one thing about Rachel. She never denied that she
was a criminal. She never denied that she had been
arrested for petty theft, for larceny. She did, while technically
no longer a pirate, loot a few important people that
included Perez Morton, who was a revolutionary patriot, a friend

(17:33):
of John Adams, and a man who would become a
powerful lawyer and future Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
But this accusation of highway robbery stuck, and she pleaded
not guilty. She always said she didn't do it, so
if hanging would be her execution, which it was, she

(17:53):
believed and requested that she be hanged as a pirate.
She went on to argue that she shouldn't be executed
or sentenced for this crime of highway robbery. She maintained
her innocence, saying, quote witnesses who swore against me are
certainly mistaken, she said, but she continued, as a dying person,
I freely forgive them. She quote hoped her awful and

(18:15):
untimely fate will be a solemn warning and caution to everyone,
but more particularly to the youth, especially those of my
own sex. There were three hangings on the day that
Rachel was executed, including William Smith and William Dunigan. All
three had been convicted and sentenced to death for highway robbery.

(18:36):
Rachel was the final execution of the day and was
hanged at the Great Elm in Boston Commons. It's reported
that there were thousands of bystanders on hand for the event,
and it was reported that quote everyone present was ready
for the morning's gruesome excitement. When Rachel's time came, she
jumped out off the edge to her death without help.

(18:57):
You made me wondering, as Rachel did. Was hanging really
the punishment for allegedly stealing a bonnet? Yes? Actually, well
it could be, so we'll do a really quick overview
of that. The Massachusetts Bay Colony Charter had previously been
revoked by the King of England, and that meant that
Massachusetts was totally free to establish its own laws based

(19:21):
on court judgments and jury opinions. Additionally, by the end
of the eighteenth century, the ruling class in Massachusetts believed
there was a massive and unprecedented crime wave just occurring
around them all the time, and their solution was to
be swift and merciless. They may have actually been exaggerating
that crime problem, but their solution just the same was

(19:43):
capital punishment, and this law could mean hanging for the
theft of a bonnet. It could also, unfortunately permit the
execution of any woman with a baby born outside of
marriage to be hanged, while the man involved was almost
always exempt from punishment. The time and place is interesting here. Okay,
we don't intend to gloss over the importance of the

(20:04):
American Revolution, of course, but for the context of what
we're talking about today, that's the setting for Rachel's story
in Boston. So we're gonna talk just a little nip
about the Revolution. Battles were fought from Quebec all the
way down to the Carolina's. Basically everyone along the Eastern
seaboard was recovering from battle, either through participating or it

(20:26):
just being part of their world. In Massachusetts, many residents
have become stressed and distressed about any sort of lawlessness
or crime. There was a lot going on in Massachusetts
at the time, and in particular in Boston and the
surrounding area. The Siege of Boston, which began the American
Revolutionary War, the Battle of Bunker Hill, the battles of

(20:47):
Lexington and Conquered you know, these battles and all of
these had just completely exhausted the population. To contextualize where
Rachel's story and her execution fit in the larger area.
By this time, in Massachusetts, juris had hanged a hundred
and twenty seven women over two hundred years, and that
included famously women accused of being witches in the Salem

(21:11):
witch Trials, which happened between six and six Though not
all of the more than two hundred alleged witches were executed,
that brief period marks a notable concentration of the total
number of women who had been put to death for
crimes in the colony and in the state. The number
of women hanged in Massachusetts after the witch trials and

(21:31):
before Rachel Wall came along, dwindled for about a century.
Rachel was not only the last woman hanged in Massachusetts,
she also became a unique outlier, and that she had
not been accused of being a witch and was one
of the last that could claim that to be hanged
there that is true. She died on Thursday October eight,

(21:52):
sevent eighty nine, when she was twenty nine years old.
Word of her death was announced through various newspapers. In
the plight of her life was memorialized as a woodcut
illustration of her corpse dangling from the gallows while she
lost her life for theft, at least on paper, we
wonder if it sort of seems like she was really

(22:13):
being tried for her life of piracy. Maybe maybe not.
It's hard to determine the politics at hand and her trial.
We do know that in her final hours, Rachel went
to her death asking for mercy on her soul, completing
her confession with we quote and now into the hands
of Almighty God, I commit my soul relying on his

(22:33):
mercy through the merits and mediation of my redeemer, and
die an unworthy member of the Presbyterian Church in the
twenty nine year of my age. Alright, so Holly, I'm
gonna come and meet you in the groggery, and I
hope the grogory has a lot of nutmeg. Today the
gregory is actually nutmeg free. I'm sorry to disappoint you.

(22:56):
You ran out, That's okay, but there is a little
bit of autumnal fun going on. Well that's really what
I want in thinking about this story and what might
be a good way to honor Rachel. I wanted to
kind of recognize that she was living in New England
at a time when ciders and hard ciders were very popular.

(23:19):
But it's also I wanted to do a little extra
autumnal twist, so because she did die in October, and
because we're we're at that time of year ourselves, and
because I always have autumn flavored things in my house
year round anyway. So this is a cocktail called the
Hanged Woman, and it is very simple and to my palette,

(23:40):
dangerously delicious. You're gonna start with a champagne coupe or
a flute, your preference. I prefer a coupe for this.
A splash of pumpkin syrup. If you want to measure it,
I would say about a half an ounce, but I
just kind of pour in a splash, and then it
is three ounce of hard cider, and then you top

(24:02):
it with three ounces of champagne. And you want a
sweeter champagne. You don't want to really dry one for this.
This is so stinking delicious. I don't even know what
to do with myself, and I want to guzzle it,
and that is not good to me. It would be
like a perfect little celebration toast drink um. I love

(24:24):
a champagne cocktail anyway, but this one is shockingly good.
I am not a hard cider drinker by nature. Cider
is just not my jam boy. I like it in
this iteration. Now, the thing that's nice about this is
that it's really easy to do a one to one
alcohol free version. So you just do a non alcoholic
cider and a bit of ginger ale. I would actually

(24:46):
do like a sugar free or a low sugar ginger
ale there um, so you don't get too cloying lee sweet,
and keep the pumpkin syrup because that's that's easy, and
then like sip away because it's real delicious. I mean,
the non alcoho holly version would be great for like
a kid's party, even if you wanted to like serve
them something that felt fancy, you know. I mean, I

(25:07):
remember when I was a kid, I always did the
like pretend cocktails. I think a lot of kids do.
But you know, ideally you don't want to start your
children drinking so um. Again, this is one that I'm
going to make in large quantities for parties, but in
both the mock tail version and the cocktail version, because yeah,

(25:28):
I love the ones that you bring to the show
that are clearly some of your favorites. You came on
this morning and you were like, I love this drink,
so like I knew that it was going to be
a good one. I do. I love it and it's
we we have gotten in the habit of talking about
my husband's reactions to drink, since he is not a drinker.
He's a good litmus test. Yes, and he quite liked
this one, So that's a shocking and delightful endorsement as

(25:52):
a good sign. Did he drink both both versions? No,
he only he only tried the cocktail version. Excellent, So
I mean, I'm sure the mocktail version would be equally
delicious for him because it was equally delicious for me. Um. Yeah,
Like I said, I'm gonna make a ton of these
this fall because it's perfect. So hopefully you find a

(26:13):
reason to celebrate and raise a glass, whether it is
champagne and hard cider based or otherwise. We hope that
this automo is treating you well. I want to thank
everybody for once again spending time with us today, and
we will meet you right back here with another pirate
next week. Criminalia is a production of Shonda Land Audio

(26:36):
in partnership with I Heart Radio for more podcasts from
Shonda land Audio. Please visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.